A Telegram bot for your customers

Besides the chat on your site, customers can write to your bot in Telegram. It is your bot, with its own name and picture, not Tolkly's. The same AI answers it from the same knowledge and rules as the chat on the site. When a person is needed, the conversation goes to the inbox and to a topic of the support group, like a conversation from the site. The operator answers where they always do, and the customer gets the reply in Telegram.

Do not mix up the two bots:

• Tolkly's bot works in your company's support group and serves operators (Operators in Telegram).
• Your bot talks to customers in private chats. It is connected in each project on its own.

Connect the bot#

An owner or admin of the company connects it, in the project's «Install» section, block «Telegram bot».

1. In Telegram open @BotFather, send /newbot, give the bot a name and an address. BotFather sends a token: digits, a colon, then letters.
2. Paste the token into «Bot token from BotFather» and press «Connect».
3. Write to the bot yourself. The block shows «Connected, no messages yet», and after the first message «Working». The AI answers in a few seconds.

The token is kept encrypted and is never shown again. One bot serves one project. If the bot already answers somewhere else, it stops there: Telegram sends a bot's messages to one place only. Tolkly's bot for operators cannot be connected as yours.

For people to answer conversations from the bot, the project needs operators («Handoff to people» › «The project has operators»), and someone to answer: operators answer in the app's inbox or in the company's support group.

How the bot talks#

• Before the first AI answer the bot says an AI answers, as the chat on the site does.
• The bot answers in the customer's language: by the letters of their message, and for /start by the language of their Telegram app.
• The customer is not asked for a contact: the Telegram chat is the contact. Outside working hours the bot says an operator will answer right there.
• A customer can send up to 10 messages a minute. The bot drops the rest and says so once a minute.
• A new question after a closed conversation, or after two hours of quiet, starts a new conversation with a new topic in the group. The operator sees this customer's earlier conversations on the card.

From the chat on the site to Telegram#

When the bot works and the project has operators, the contact form in the chat on the site offers «Continue in Telegram». The customer presses it, the bot opens with the same conversation, and the operator's reply comes in Telegram: the tab with the site can be closed. Replies reach both Telegram and the chat on the site.

The support group through your bot#

By default Tolkly's bot posts conversation cards into the support group. It serves many companies, and at peak times cards can lag. To keep the group yours alone, add your bot to it as an admin with «Manage topics» and «Delete messages» and press «Switch to @your_bot» in the «Telegram bot» block, row «Support group». With no group yet, you can link one through your bot right there. «Back to @…» returns the group to Tolkly's bot.

Disconnecting#

«Disconnect» in the «Telegram bot» block. People who write to the bot stop getting answers, and operators' replies in its conversations do not reach them. The conversations stay in the inbox.

If the block says «Telegram does not take the token», the token was revoked or the bot deleted in BotFather: get a new token and connect the bot again.